Best ramen in the Bay

Ramen Dojo is a little ramen shop near Downtown San Mateo. It seats around 24 people (super small) and is completely packed all the time. They open at 11:30am for lunch and unless you get there by 11:15am to put your name down, be prepared to wait anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour. Same goes for dinner – they open at 5:30pm and unless you put your name down early, the wait will probably be 30 minutes to an hour plus. Just ridiculous.

But rightly so, because it is by far some of the best ramen I’ve had in the Bay Area. The ramen soup base selection is small (3 choices), but you can customize your bowl to your heart’s desire with many additions (for a price of course). The garlic pork broth is their most popular and usually runs out by the end of the night. Naturally, that’s the one I ordered and it was full of rich and strong flavor. Didn’t disappoint at all.

The pork itself was tender and had just the right ratio of meat to fat. I got extra pork because I knew I would want more. The little quail egg was a little disappointing though. My brother said the yolk is usually runny, but mine was pretty much hard boiled. I didn’t mind it, but just a little disappointed because I like my ramen eggs runny.

But by far the best part of the ramen was the ramen noodle itself. The noodles were chewy and bouncy with a good egg flavor. It was perfectly cooked and on my first bite I already knew I was in for a good meal. Everything in that bowl of ramen was put together so well that my mouth is watering just writing about it right now.

The only recommendation I have is that unless you love spicy food, you should get the mild level spicy. I consider myself to be someone who can handle heat, but the regular was already super spicy to me. It almost took away from the ramen itself because it ran the risk of dumbing my taste buds. Next time I’m definitely getting mild spicy so I can savor every bite of the rich flavors in that bowl.